Adam The God

Love Bowser, but reckon he's too small for the midfield.

He's certainly big bodied. He's a good player when fit and a reasonable user of the ball. Wouldn't say he was an elite user though. It'd be hard stopping a midfield of Petracca, Yeo, Oliver, Viney and Sparrow. That's a strong, aggressive and powerful mix.

Thoughts on Darcy Parish to complement our mids with a bit of speed? Not an elite ball user, but he's probably quicker than anyone else in our midfield. I guess it depends on cost...?

I can't stand sitting anywhere other than the wing or flank. Elevated, behind the goals is probably a better view for structures, but you can make them out from the wing/flank too.

Both teams are in the same boat. I'm sure we'll have multiple plans for certain players, but we'll focus on ourselves as always. Collingwood's ball movement and what they try to do isn't drastically going to change from the last year of football, so it's about how our system can combat this and exploit it. The personnel is largely irrelevant, although we know De Goey and Sidebottom won't be playing.

Some people will find the following remarks inflammatory, but these are people that are completely caught up with groupthink or don't understand football. It's one or the other. And this is driven by the media narrative.

Great article. The only bit I disagree with is the following: "More emphasis has been placed on having more numbers higher up the ground – it leaves the defence exposed if the opposition can win effective clearances and get it long, but it improves field position offensively on neutral balls." If by this, the author means we have outnumbers at stoppages, that's not my take on how we play at all. That's Collingwood's model and it's what leaves them so vulnerable on counter, and it's what I believe we'll exploit tomorrow. With Oliver, Petracca and Viney at stoppages, we'd win our fair share of CP and stoppages to exploit a full strength Collingwood.

Really? Does it really matter?

Bailey is always very dangerous against us. He does have good burst from the stoppage, but my read on him is he's better offensively, without much defensively. This is probably a Brisbane problem.

Half our team was injured and yet we still led at half time and they only just got over the top of us. Their game doesn't stand up in big games, because it relies on 1v1s that are a lot rarer in big finals. Their midfield hasa record of going missing too. They bat deeper this year, but Indont consider them a great threat. Port in Adelaide, maybe, but other than that, it's Collingwood, us and the dark horse is Adelaide.

He reminds me of Tom Phillips. Is that a fair comparison?

It shows how easily the media narrative seaps into the public consciousness.

That was my first thought too, but I reckon it's more likely Viney they work on IMO. Good luck on Trac, he's too powerful and big, but Jack is smaller and was key in breaking up stoppages last week. Port targeted Jack and I suspect Collingwood will do the same.

Again, Clarry is the best player in the competition IMV, but we will beat them without Clarry.

Exactly and it makes us less predictable without Clarry in there. Don't get me wrong, he's my favourite player and we need him there for finals, but we can and will win without him.

Yep, given Higgins is super flakey, inconsistent and poor defensively. That said, he too managed 3 tackles inside 50 last night, so maybe I need to give him more credit.

Butler was very good in this area last night. 5 tackles inside 50, which puts him number 1 in the league for the moment, 1 ahead of Koz.

I like the Gawn behind the ball suggestion, but there's some interesting psychology behind that move, because Cox got Max's kidneys last year. He'll do it again of he gets the chance, however I reckon it's worth risking it, so Max provides extra cover for our defence. He needs to find his 2021 form in the air though.

I'm watching on delay, but watch this game and tell me fatigue isn't a huge factor in modern footy... skills are appalling. Often under little pressure. For the record, Sydney look to be suffering far greater fatigue, but in the first five minutes, you could see multiple players breathing in the big ones, hands on heads and hips etc. It's naturally continued into the second quarter.

And he missed, what, two games?

What does the article actually say, please, for those of us without subscriptions to the HUN? :)

I reckon it'd be even better if we gave Clarry another week off and beat them anyway.

I'm confident either way, with or without Clarry. Our mids will be under pressure to step up if Clarry doesn’t play. That'd hold us in good stead.

If Daicos can't get the same amount of ball because we beat them in the contest and pressure the outside ball, he becomes less of a problem. I think we've got the best system, it just has more evolution to come.

Exactly. So it's not about covering him on kick ins. You back your system in to beat theirs and have players responsible in each phase of the contest and area of the ground. And you set yourselves up to score big on turn over. Tick. Which means they'll be -1 in the back half. If they choose to send another half forward or winger up to the contest to be a +2 at the contest, that makes them -1 at either end of the ground. I'd suggest that what many of us have said, RE Smith playing a defensive role on Moore will also come to fruition. This means the rest of our forwards have a +1 advantage and hopefully Smith can take out their best interceptor. I'm really hoping we give Clarry another week off and we test ourselves against them without the best contested player in the league.